Alan Rusbridger, by royal appointment destroyer of hard drives, astonishingly has yet again given space to Gordon Brown’s witterings on Scottish Independence. That is at least twelve articles puffing Brown in the last month.

This one is quite probably the most stupid yet. Brown opines that Scotland will not be a more equal or progressive society after independence. It is a great shame that these Cassandra like powers of predicting the future were not working when his own policies of creating an economic bubble, based on massive boosting of irresponsive speculation in the City of London, led to a crash which has impoverished us all for generations.

Brown’s prognostication is based on his analysis that Alex Salmond’s policies are not progressive. The evidence that the SNP is to the left of the Labour Party is overwhelming. Leaving that aside, Brown makes the presumption that the SNP will be the government in an independent Scotland. It is much more probable that, independence settled, there will be a realignment of Scottish party politics. It will certainly not be a one party state. Pretty well the one thing we can be sure of is that a Conservative government is unlikely – and as that is what the UK is heading for in 2015, I think we can expect an independent Scotland to be at any rate less regressive.

Tuition fees, Academy schools, PFI, NHS prescriptions, bedroom tax – these are all areas where Gordon Brown and New Labour advance the full neo-con agenda and which have been stoutly resisted by the Scottish government. Genuinely left parties and the Greens have consistent representation in the Scottish parliament and are listened to, not openly mocked and abused as Caroline Lucas is when she speaks in parliament.

This nonsense from Gordon Brown is perhaps to be expected. But why on earth does the Guardian keep publishing it?

27 Comments

The Guardian/Telegraph/Mail/Express are all exactly the same regarding Scots.

Racist.

As I write this there are comments about Yes voters all being nazis & in one instace claiming we want to make the English wear yellow stars – a particularly nasty poster called Peel is responsible for that one.

The Guardian is a British nationalist newspaper, just like the Daily Mail, as, in the same way, the late Tony Benn was a British nationalist, all be it a left-wing one.
The Guardian still thinks Gordon Brown is respected in Scotland; I doubt if it thinks he is respected in England. Thus we in Scotland are expected to believe England’s reject, Brown, when he spouts his reactionary rubbish about Scotland.

“It is a great shame that these Cassandra like powers of predicting the future were not working when his own policies of creating an economic bubble, based on massive boosting of irresponsive speculation in the City of London, led to a crash which has impoverished us all for generations.”

I wish. I look forward to the day when our politicians actually do have the power to create policies which cause an economic bubble leading to a massive crash.

Unfortunately, that power lies in the hands of the international bankers. Broon, like his predecessors and successors, merely implemented their policies. The resulting crash, while disastrous for the British economy, was the goal of the bankers, just another profitable round in their oft-repeated strategy of boom and bust.

It’s not a huge piece, and it’s on page 11 of the print edition, sans photo of Broon. The key to Broon’s thinking is this:

“…We must have a view of how we can manage globalisation, which is what the biggest issue is facing the UK, about he (sic) we can expose the fact nation states alone cannot solve these problems, whether it’s climate change or financial stability or growth,”

He’s bought into the nation-bad, global-good meme, by conveniently ignoring the fact that globalisation is largely responsible for the problems he lists, and is enthusiastically making them worse. He has a naive faith that a global community can in some way moderate the excesses of neoconservative global capitalism, but it can’t. That is because, no matter how national borders are punctured to aid the flow of money, global capitalists will keep its servants at each others’ throats in competition for resources and ever-lower-paid work. A functional global community of interest is in fact inimical to the neoconservative model.

So spying is a normal, useful journalistic tool. Everyone is doing it. Anyone who is against a bit of innocent spying is a Hobophobe. i.e. thinks people who think they are entitled to privacy in their own homes, shouldn’t be allowed to live in a home at all.

I am appalled to see local CoE churches and the local authority buildings flying the Armed Forces Day flag-Please Give Your Support. Some have a version including the Help the Heroes logo. Armed Forces Day was a Gordon Brown construct. He is a creep.

“How would you suggest we deal with the phenomenon of globalisation; how do we “un-globalise”.”

Wave a magic wand? It’s not possible to un-ring a bell, but we could nationalize banks to take control away from predatory Boards of Directors. Not a perfect solution, of course. Any financial structure will be managed by human beans with all their warts, even if composed of anonymous citizenry chosen from a pool of voters.

““How would you suggest we deal with the phenomenon of globalisation; how do we “un-globalise”.”

Wave a magic wand? It’s not possible to un-ring a bell, but we could nationalize banks to take control away from predatory Boards of Directors.”
______________________

Same remark as to Geoffrey, Ben, but thank you for responding.

Same questions also, Ben. How would nationalising the banks (and appointing “citizen directors”, so to speak) help roll back globalisation and is there anything else you would suggest should happen, or is that it?

Apologies for intervening Habbakuk.
The UK(for eg) would be able to decide for itself whether Big Bad Capitalist Corp. pays tax here,decide what animal it puts in it’s burgers,etc etc etc.
This would certainly slow down globalisation.

Mr Snow,
In reference to tonight’s Snowmail.
Concerning the acquittal of Rebekah Brooks you say:

“Cameras lingered on the black door in a relatively anonymous Georgian street in London. A triumphant Rebekah Brooks emerged to say her piece. She was “innocent and vindicated” after a “time of reflection”. Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies will have all the details.”

Concerning the acquittal of Abu Qatada you say:

“Today, he has been cleared. But this tells us more about Jordan’s insecurity amid the maelstrom of war surrounding her than whether the radical preacher was innocent or guilty.”

Nice one Jon.
I recommend the bright blue, red and yellow striped tie with the purple zig zags running through it for any high class media celeb parties at relatively anonymous Georgian streest in London you might be invited to soon.

‘After learning French in Paris and Italian in Perugia, he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Christ Church, Oxford and graduated with a third-class honours degree. While at Oxford he was President of the Christ Church JCR, a member of the Bullingdon Club – a socially exclusive student dining and drinking society – and editor of the student magazine, Isis.’

How can anyone take The Guardian seriously these days when it reports on loony Mardonna allegedly comparing Luis Suarez’s punishment to being sent to Gitmo, and complains about China not beeing willing to translate Hillary’s complete self-serving rubbish into Chinese when she starts out with setting its leadership up for a big fall.

It should be willing to step aside, like she allegedly did after the 2008 presidential primaries, because of its unpopularity with its people.

Don’t expect anything, though, about her efforts in this regard while she was Secretary of State.

the guardian is middle class version of the daily Heil,it will now and again try and buck the trend and publish articals that have some element of controversy.But it has to follow the laws of capitolism otherwise it will antaganise the establishment who will make sure it’s demise.